


what to miss

by samarqand



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Anal Fingering, Coming Untouched, Hand Jobs, Himring, Jealousy, M/M, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Sibling Incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-28
Updated: 2020-12-28
Packaged: 2021-03-11 03:02:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,384
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28388214
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/samarqand/pseuds/samarqand
Summary: "Nelyo," Maglor asked, "are you jealous?"(Mereth Aderthad ends; Maglor receives fan mail; Maedhros contends with some unexpected feelings.)
Relationships: Maedhros | Maitimo/Maglor | Makalaurë
Comments: 12
Kudos: 36





	what to miss

**Author's Note:**

> For dearest E: you are _such_ a wonder to me, kind and skilled and bright; your brilliance blinds me. Ow. My little heart is so grateful you are my friend. With your beautiful images in mind, I tried _so hard_ to feel out a "happy" route for this pairing (can such a thing be). And somehow... got here, to this fic that has no artistic merit whatsoever.
> 
> Enjoy!

“Nelyo,” Maglor asked, “are you jealous?”

Before the years spent deprived upon Thangorodrim, loathing the obstinance of his own life, jealousy would’ve found no purchase with Maedhros. He’d taken intimacy for granted: Maglor’s knock on his door in the evenings, the whispered inside jokes, the shared secrets.

But he’d given away all their punchlines and soft fears on the torturer’s table. Decades swallowed up by stone and metal, he’d forsaken the hope of hearing knuckles tapping on an oak door again.

And then -- suddenly -- he had it all back: Maglor’s company, his smiling conversation, the almost disbelieving sort of love in Maglor’s light touch on his arm, and -- was he jealous now?

Maglor left the Pools of Ivrin with a stack, carefully stowed in his satchel so as not to fray the parchment, of love letters. 

So Maedhros called them, to gauge just how Maglor’s ears reddened, and watch him affect indignation as he fanned them out across Maedhros’ desk. Heedless of spring, Himring’s implacable freeze usurped the fireplace’s best efforts: a snow-scented draft ruffled a note Maglor smoothed open to read, and he curved his back against the chill as he pored over the writing.

“These are but expressions of good will from our allies. Ties we ought to reaffirm while we may, Maedhros,” Maglor deflected. He lingered on the pronunciation, _Maedhros_ , resting it upon his lips and feeling its fall. 

(They’d played with his Sindarized moniker at the Mereth Aderthad, he and Fingon and Maglor, sang and laughed through the novelty of it while drunk on wine of bad vintage when the best finally ran dry. 

But play turned serious: Maedhros had declared to Maglor on their ride home, over the soft hoofing of his steed through the snow flurries, that he wanted no more of _Maitimo._

 _Maitimo_ was the name of a child in Eldamar. _Maitimo_ had hurried into Morgoth’s waiting maw, mistaking the glinting fangs for vestiges of Light.

Play turned serious. Children grew up. They even died sometimes, in part or whole.

“‘Maedhros’ from here on,” Maedhros decided.

Maglor had fallen silent, twisting at his hair for lack of strings to busy his fingers. He stared out across the snow’s alabaster glaze: composing, no doubt, a eulogy in his head to the name he had uttered for half an age. Unduly sentimental over a name so long ago degraded and shattered.

“Of course,” Maglor had agreed, after having his quiet. He reached across the emptiness between their horses’ tread, that frigid stretch, to take Maedhros’ hand. Smiled to see Maedhros’ smile, laughed when Maedhros refused to let go. 

Relearning togetherness had taken time. And then Maedhros could not slake his thirst for it.

“So will you call me ‘Maglor’?” he’d asked, stroking at his horse when its ears perked to the mystery name.

“You’ll ever be 'Makalaurë' to me, Káno,” Maedhros answered, possessive at the thought of those letters in Sindarin, their bridge language: _Maglor_ inscribed on every one of them.)

Maedhros pointedly pulled his maps out from under Maglor’s imposition of letters, sending a small cascade of parchment to the floor. “How many letters?” he asked, pouring himself a glass of wine from the carafe to compensate for the bite in the air.

“Hm?” hummed Maglor, distracted as he perused a note. And then another. “Many,” he answered guilelessly. “It seems they particularly enjoyed my lyric poem.” 

He smiled down to a note. A hastily written letter from Daeron, bard of Doriath, nearly ruthless in its effusion: a billet-doux burdened with adjectives and underlined words. 

Daeron, who had waved off his own gaggle of admirers to imbibe Maglor’s performance. Daeron, who’d dragged Mablung through the mingling crowds as he chased Maglor’s voice like a zealot. Daeron, who’d unapologetically sidled up to the cabal Maedhros, Fingon, and Maglor made outside the hall, joining in the bid for Maglor’s attention. 

And Maglor, flattered by the only bard whose skill surpassed his, had given him all he sought.

Diplomacy. What they had come to practice. 

So Maedhros told himself; he had lent his ear to the Green Elf ambassadors, and shared numberless toasts with his uncle the High King, and caroused with the crowds. Charming and confident, he had only allowed himself to cast his glances about for Maglor whenever he heard his clear, appreciative laughter. Somewhere else.

“You and I would endure a winter everlasting upon this land, but for our allies’ warmth,” Maglor reflected. He leaned himself against the carved oak desk and watched Maedhros with a poet’s desire to exegete his mood, turn it explicable. “I read hope for us, and indeed for our undertaking, in these letters, Nelyo.” He tilted his head to regard his brother, as if seeing something plainly that few could: the burden of awareness crowning Maedhros, awareness of all he stood to lose. A burden to join the memory of Thangorodrim and the heft of the Oath patiently shackling them down, down -- “Maedhros.”

Maedhros half-smiled, observed as Maglor lifted a letter and schooled his expression neutral at the sight. Then his smile vanished.

“Is that -- “ Maedhros grabbed the note from Maglor. “Is this from _Finno_?”

Maglor looked at him blankly for a beat, before bursting into laughter at the incredulity on Maedhros’ face. “Finno is ever generous with us, and well you know it,” he blithely understated. He plucked Fingon’s letter out of his hand and laughingly ducked away from Maedhros’ grasping to open it himself. Maedhros caught him at his wrist, pulling the letter toward his own line of sight.

They spent a pause reading Fingon’s note together. Maedhros stole a furtive glance toward his brother, only to find Maglor watching him. They smiled, sharing the guilt.

\-- “So you have made votaries of the feast-goers,” Maedhros remarked.

“All of them?” Maglor wondered, finger stroking at the parchment as he refolded it. His gaze was brief as a snow dusting upon Maedhros. It _could_ overwhelm: could push Maedhros into saying anything his brother was after, if it decided to keep right there. 

But Maglor was already turning over the next letter in his hands delicately, as if to cherish the very thought of it before he read on.

Maedhros muttered around a mouthful of wine: “You have enough devotees.”

“I only should like to tell him how I, too, appreciate him,” Maglor reasoned, ready to slip into the letter’s distraction -- but waiting for a reason to stay present.

“You would appreciate me,” he confirmed, mincing no words, “for appreciating you.”

Voice honeyed, teasing: “Yes. It is like harmonizing, you see. I’ve prepared the tension, and now you resolve it.”

Maedhros nearly rolled his eyes. “Are you expecting a letter from me?”

“Would you like to write me a letter?” Maglor asked as he trifled with his jewelry, undid his earrings.

“This overabundance has already gone to your head,” Maedhros returned after another gulp of wine.

Maglor turned away as if in offense, but not before stealing Maedhros’ glass and draining the drink. “If you signed it with _Maedhros_ , perhaps I could wonder, for a moment, if it were a stranger,” he jested. “And we might call this _Maedhros_ fellow the fool for feeding my ego so.”

Ridiculous, of course. Maglor consecrated himself to words, their textures and cadences. He lost himself in wandering through prosody, consuming rhythm and intonation until the syllables, even spoken, were song. 

And Maedhros had felt the way Maglor took every chance to press _Maedhros_ against his lips and make it his, indulging in the heat of it. Pronouncing it with a purr of an _M_ , a trilled _r_ , a sighing _s_.

Maedhros reclaimed the cup -- mechanically poured himself another cupful. “It's senseless trying to outwrite a Sinda bard who is intent on bedding you.”

“ _Nelyo_!” Maglor exclaimed, horrified but nearly laughing.

Maedhros took a drink. “Let us not pretend, Káno.”

Maglor’s serene brow knit then. A thought arrived to him unbidden and refused to be shrugged away. “Nelyo,” he asked, sotto voce, “are you jealous?”

Maedhros stared him down. Maglor watched him, his gaze loaded.

“Do you want me jealous?” Maedhros turned the question back on him.

Maglor shook his head, sitting himself on the desk. A small benison: he at last turned his back on the disarray of letters. 

“No, I do not want you to be jealous. Not a whit,” Maglor said, slipping his rings from his fingers. A common ritual before -- he reached to retrieve his small wooden lyre and positioned it on his lap. Exploratory, he strummed his fingertips across the seven strings. Back, forth: an homage to the sauntering snowflakes outside.

Maybe Maedhros didn’t believe him. 

Maybe Maedhros had not the goodness, not anymore, to sweep out his jealousy before it rooted somewhere visceral. He had no choice but to sit with it, to feel it needling through him -- no choice but to inhabit the thought that he could have Maglor back only to lose him again.

Maybe he had resurrected with Thangorodrim’s deprivation still strung around him, a bone rattle to ever remind him of futures _Without_.

Stronger now, and somehow brittle underneath, Maedhros hadn’t the patience anymore to pretend.

“Then don’t ask.”

Maglor’s fine features registered surprise, but he said nothing. Quiet never suited Maglor for long, however; after a moment spent petting at the lyre’s fine tuning pegs, he lowered his head and played.

His fingers conversed and curled along the strings in an improvised rhythm. After a ruminative moment, his voice joined in and married the melody: softly he sang, so that no sentinel outside, no kitchen staff, no wailing weather, might hear him. 

None but Maedhros.

“What’s this?” Maedhros asked.

“I am giving you a private show,” Maglor answered simply.

Maglor was at his most commanding with a song on his lips, and he knew it: arresting, beguiling, he sang of the shy advent of spring upon the hills, the promise it bore. His head tipped over his lyre in reverence for the humble instrument, but his gaze lifted to meet Maedhros’ as he played. Again, again. As if assuring himself he had not dreamt up Maedhros’ return, and asking if he was giving him reason enough to stay.

The flowers opening wide, offering themselves to be seen, to be chosen. The nectar from the fruit dripping wild, asking to be tasted.

His ministrations would be reckless -- if they were not contained to this toy of a lyre. How brutal the beckon of his fingers if not so controlled in their dance across the strings. 

He slid the lyre lower as he sang of rain, spreading his legs just enough to draw the instrument between them. His free hand caressed along its hewn wooden neck, praising its snaking curves, their purpose. 

His gaze lifted.

How destructive he might be, if he were anything but the songbird who smiled now, on an intake of breath, to find Maedhros staring at him rapt.

Maglor never needed to reach out for what he desired. Just a pluck of his finger swifting the strings into ecstasy -- just one note, sung sweetly -- and he could have it. 

It drew in close to him, closed in on him, insistent on nearness, famished and jealous --

Maedhros pressed his fingers to Maglor’s throat; he felt, like a jolt, when Maglor’s voice hitched, but the shimmering song carried on. 

A thrill to feel -- to understand -- _with_ and _together_ again. The potential. The primality.

And Maglor’s playing turned idle as he sang-song, “Nelyo”: asking for him -- and then receiving when Maedhros kissed his mouth. 

A half-pronounced word fainted away, crushed between their lips.

They drew apart. Maglor was looking at him in that way, a flush creeping up to his cheeks, looking at him with that disbelieving sort of --

“Again,” Maglor hushed.

Maedhros kissed him again.

He lingered. Maglor opened his eyes.

Maedhros pulled back, panting like an animal as he stared at his brother. Already half-hard. Shifting his weight in an anticipation, a craving to —

Maglor reached for his hand, pressed the rough fingers back to his throat. 

“Kiss me again.” Maedhros _felt_ the command against his hand before he heard, but he was already kissing Maglor before the sounds made sense. He was already burning away.

Surging close with a knee at Maglor’s leg to spread him wider, to pull in closer, one of Maglor’s hands stroked at Maedhros’ jaw, coaxing open his mouth. Urgent and wet, their tongues pressed. Teeth to lip, tugging. A gasp, unceremonious.

The lyre persisted as a small but dauntless impediment between their bodies, and -- Maglor was still inexplicably strumming some tune upon it. Like the melody might see him through the breathless swell of whatever this was, this mad craving for --

Maedhros decisively pulled the thing away, resting it to the side. Hand on Maglor’s waist, he pulled him to where their bodies pressed flush and Maglor managed “ah” into Maedhros’ mouth.

To the point of being sloppy, he was greedy -- licking into Maglor’s mouth wherever he could get, licking up the taste of wine and the sound of hurried breathing. He kissed to bruise, like it had been the only thing on his mind. And maybe it had been. Maybe there was no excuse, only confession --

“Wait.” A gasp against his mouth that shuddered Maedhros to a stop. “Wait.”

Maedhros moved to retreat, but Maglor’s arms were winding around his neck, fingers lacing into his hair so they kept together. “Slowly,” Maglor breathed, leaning into his hold to kiss him again. Slowly. “Like you want it to last.”

Slowly, he kissed him open and shivering. Slowly, his coarsened hand touched down Maglor’s neck: a flick, a twist, and he slid Maglor’s gold necklace away from his skin, stripping him of pretense. 

He broke from Maglor’s lips only to tongue at the naked hollow of his throat, to graze him with his teeth and feel his brother’s pulse frenetic and hunted, responding to him.

Impressing his weight on Maglor, he spilled him back onto the desk and those letters, opened and unopened. Maglor’s thighs shifted against the wax seals and crisp parchment as his fingers played with the ties on Maedhros’ trousers: a tease -- an ask, before they let themselves fall down hand-in-hand.

Maedhros rolled his hips against Maglor’s in answer, watching his head fall back inti the nest parchment as he hooked his legs around Maedhros’ waist. He urged Maedhros down for a long kiss that ended artless and messy, oblivious to the names haloing him: his own name, and the names of letter-writers. Names they both knew, and new names. All those contenders for his attention. 

Names that now susurred underneath his body, a whispering audience to witness Maedhros pinning Maglor down to slake his thirst for _together_. 

Slowly, like Maglor wanted, he dismantled that performer’s poise beneath him. He wanted to contend for Maglor, win him over, claim him. And he did -- drinking of him until Maglor was singing for him again, a refrain of sighs and moans.

Maglor’s hands dipped into his trousers, slid them low, and deftly gathered Maedhros’ cock into his hands. He touched -- a caress to feel at him and know him, before he settled into an indulgent tempo. 

Maedhros grunted, a noise swallowed by his brother in another kiss -- Maglor’s hands devout in their movement up and down his arousal. He asked Maedhros with the flit of his tongue, the nip of teeth:

“You want me to make you come?” Maedhros murmured against Maglor’s ear, unsteady with Maglor’s hands compelling pleasure.

“Please,” Maglor hushed, lips moving at Maedhros’ scarred jawline in propitiation.

“Please what?” His hand, unyielding, dragged along the strain of Maglor’s arousal through his trousers.

“Maedhros,” a perfunctory protest mouthed at Maedhros’ neck. Squirming and unable to help it. One of his hands fell from Maedhros’ cock and fisted against the letters, a needy gesture. The parchment crumpled and creaked in his grip until a sound -- edges ripping. 

Maedhros hauled Maglor up from the desk, let Maglor insist him back into the chair. Maglor slid onto his lap, his legs astride Maedhros’ thighs. 

Intent, Maedhros pressed two of his fingers into his brother’s hot, eager mouth.

“Do you want me to make you come?” he asked again, his voice clipped when Maglor handled his cock again. 

Maglor whimpered and nodded around the fingers, bold now with his mouth busy. Indecent, how beautiful he looked sucking, his attention all for Maedhros’ desire-dark gaze and the cock heavy in his hands.

One of Maglor’s hands drew back to hitch his trousers down: offering himself to Maedhros.

“Up on your knees,” Maedhros roughed, impatient. He pulled his fingers from Maglor’s mouth, leaving a trail of wet on his lips and chin, and pressed at his entrance. 

At the first slide of a callused finger inside him, he unspooled: he draped like a doll over Maedhros’ shoulder, whining -- a pretty sound, an honest sound that went straight to Maedhros’ cock.

The chair squeaked -- loud, but did it matter anymore who could hear -- as Maglor braced himself with one hand gripping its top rail. Steadily he arched his back to take Maedhros’ finger deeper, showing him he could take it, wanted to. 

A long, slick thrust, and he got a mouthful of long black hair as Maglor’s face bowed to meet his. Maglor kissed him soundly, slowly, as though disbelieving -- “I want to come,” Maglor confessed, his mouth filthy and sincere now. He interrupted himself only to kiss Maedhros again, unable to resist. “I want to come on your fingers.”

Maedhros pushed his second finger in slowly: slowly enough that Maglor resorted, his grace finally spoiled, to wriggling those fingers into fucking him. The hand stroking at his cock persisted, a thumb at his tip making Maedhros go slick with precome, making him ache. 

Maedhros hooked his fingers inside him. The chair shook and squealed. “Ah,” Maglor moaned, high and sharp. There. “ _Ah_ ,” a louder cry against Maedhros’ cheek.

Rocking against the fingers, Maglor’s hand left Maedhros’ arousal then, to stroke himself.

“No,” Maedhros said, hoarsely but -- with conviction enough that Maglor startled and looked at him. “Come on my fingers, Káno.” 

Only his fingers.

Eyes locked on Maedhros’, Maglor wordlessly nodded.

Dazedly, decorum already flown far afield, he spat into his palm before he returned his hand to Maedhros’ cock, stroking at him with a new fervor. 

"Good," Maedhros growled; Maglor's grasp on the chair went white-knuckled. 

Those fingers quickened, thrusting sounds out of him. There was a gasping pause, a wordless interim filled with only the sounds of slick, hot movement, where Maglor’s hips stilled to just take it, take the tempo Maedhros set -- until Maglor’s head tipped to the side under the swoop of pleasure and he moaned, ragged. 

Maedhros pressed their foreheads together, watched Maglor’s eyelashes flutter. “With me?” he panted, hardly knowing why. Needing to know.

“Yes -- Maedhros, yes," Maglor keened, " _Yes_ \-- " Maedhros’ fingers pet inside him once, twice, and Maglor made a broken noise and came apart, spilling himself on their disheveled tunics. Still his fingers kept their rhythm until Maglor was shivering, stuttering inchoate syllables, his hand leaving Maedhros’ cock to clutch at Maedhros until at last the fingers drew out of him. 

After a moment spent drifting in the sensation, Maglor smeared his palm with the mess of his come and shakily returned it to Maedhros’ cock. Lips and unsteady breathing against Maedhros’ ear, his hand petitioned Maedhros in smooth, possessive strokes, tearing through the final scraps of Maedhros’ composure. 

Until abruptly -- Maedhros needed to give in, admit it couldn’t last. He bucked his hips up to meet Maglor, pumping into that hold until he came with a harsh moan against Maglor’s neck.

Maglor’s gentle weight on him, when at last he came down from some foggy somewhere else, felt dreamt. A ghost pressure that pressured Maedhros into wondering how long _together_ could last.

There was a time -- another place and another name -- when Maedhros forgot to want it. And a limitless cold hung upon Thangorodrim, and a solitude bone-deep.

The fire was drowsing into embers. After a tentative halt, a searching silence, Maglor tucked his dark head against Maedhros’ shoulder, and held Maedhros close as if to warm him.

 _Together_.

And he was certain that Maglor would last, even after all else had turned to ash.


End file.
